I recently answered an inquiry from a former student and decided that perhaps the topic would be of interest here as well. I won’t include the questions, but here’s my reply.
The “preaching schedule/calendar” is a constant challenge! The big names of the past who spent years in a book—e.g., Llyod-Jones or Barnhouse on Romans were not in church plants. Those churches were old, established churches with members who had been believers for many years. Barnhouse actually used Romans as a “foil”—he didn’t preach Romans as just Romans. He used it as a framework to preach systematic theology. So though he spent a lot of time in Romans, his people were getting a pretty wide range of truth, though probably not getting much narrative or storyline.
The flip side, of course, is the “typical” (yes, I’m a bit cynical here!) pulpit diet in the typical fund/evang church in which all that is heard is topical preaching that follows the preacher’s whim. In many cases that’s a constant diet of evangelism or of a fairly narrow stream of topics (pray more, give more, witness more, don’t do bad things).
How to balance that out is the issue. I’m convinced that systematic exposition is the mainstay, book-by-book. I’ve known some who start in Genesis and many years later finally arrive in Rev., but I’m not convinced that’s wise either. Not only does it takes decades to do reasonably well, it’s not usually a well-balanced diet, mostly since the first 3/4 of it will be OT/old covenant. While God’s people need to hear and know their OT, I suspect that a church who heard only OT for many years would be “malformed.”
I don’t think there is any one formula that will work because there are too many variations in both congregations and preachers. The abilities, backgrounds, and needs of both parties plan into the mix. Perhaps the best thing to ask is, in light of one specific situation, how do we best accomplish the goal of Eph 4:12-16.
- to prepare God’s people for works of service,
- to build up the body of Christ,
- to reach unity in the faith in the knowledge of the Son of God,
- to become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,
- to be no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming,
- to speak the truth in love,
- to grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ, and
- to enable every supporting ligament to grow and build itself up in love, as each part does its work.
I suspect that the first order of business would be an assessment of where in that big picture a specific group fit. Then asking how we get from here to there. The goal is relatively general, but it is what God says is the purpose of a church ministry, and specifically the responsibility of those individuals in leadership (though the ultimate goal is that all the members join in mutual efforts along these lines).
It is not only the pulpit ministry that accomplishes these goals, but that is perhaps the central focus around which the other pieces (which I’ve not discussed here) cluster.
In light of the pulpit ministry, we have to ask how we structure a long-term preaching schedule to move toward our goal. This can’t be done in what is too often a frantic, “Sat.-night-late” decision! A pastor ought to know fairly specifically where his preaching is going over the next year, and at least in general terms what he intends to cover in terms of the Bible books, over the next 5 years. And he should know *why* he’s doing that. It can’t be, “I’d really like to preach through Romans.”
[Excursus: every young pastor seems to want to preach through Romans! My father told me that when I finished seminary, but he also told me that most pastors my age weren't ready to preach through Romans. His assessment was that it would take at least 10 years before we were ready. He was probably right. I waited 8.]
[Second excursus: Some books are much more difficult to preach than others---even some that seem "simple." 1 John is a classic example. Many young pastors want to preach through 1 John---because many of them translated 1 John in first year Greek! But that is one of the most difficult books to preach, at least preach effectively. The message is more abstract and it also contains some very difficult theology. Wait until you've grown a bit (both in your pulpit skills, your grasp of theology, and your walk with God) before tackling it. Start preaching from the "easier" books---those with very practical relevance that lies "on the surface"---e.g., James, Philippians, etc. Another tough one to do well is Psalms.]
Back to the original subject, one might consider starting where God started—with Genesis (unless, of course, you are a new pastor and your predecessor just finished Genesis within the past few years!). Just remember that it’s narrative and you shouldn’t spend 2 years in chs 1-12! First time through you might shoot for a year, maybe less if you can preach it more than once a week. (If your 2d slot is typically less well attended, just include a *brief* review at the beginning of the next chunk so that you keep everyone close to being on the same page.)
But then I’d not move directly to Exodus. I’d probably shift to NT. Alternating back and forth between the testaments can be effective to keep things balanced, just don’t leave them isolated from each other. Esp. in the NT you need to constantly show the connections back to the Bible’s earlier story line, even if that means you need to take a 10 min. “side-trip” in a sermon to fill in some gaps—that’s esp. important when dealing with young believers, whether in a church plant or an older church. From the other end, when you’re in the OT, periodically you ought to show how particular OT themes are developed in later revelation, particularly in the NT. Don’t “read the NT back into the OT” hermeneutically to figure out what the OT means, but there is fulfillment involved, whether prophetically or typologically. It won’t be every week that you preach the equivalent of Isa 53! But there will be periodic sections that need a side-trip forward. Or perhaps it can be done by section, e.g., when you finish Genesis you might take a sermon to show how Genesis flows forward to the NT.
I don’t think that I’d probably work straight through the OT after finishing Genesis. At that point I’d want to think about how to best sketch the Bible storyline and be selective as to what books I did and in what sequence. You might even need some survey messages interspersed that show how the pieces fit together in which you “sample” a number of books in a single message. Other books, which can be done chapter by chapter, sometimes ought to be sampled as well. Exod-Deut might well be done that way the first time through so that you can give your people the big picture of the old covenant perspective in a few months—and tie it into the later NT fulfillment of many sections. (If you do it that way, then you owe it to the church to come back through some of those sections in more detail later.) And yes, you can preach Leviticus in a church plant. See one of my blog posts from about two years ago on that subject: http://ntresources.com/blog/?p=143
Well, this is a longer answer than you might have expected, and there is a lot more that could be said, but the details in every situation are too varied to pontificate! If you get the “flavor” of what I’ve said here, you can flesh it out in your situation better than I could.
A related discussion in which I was involved recently touches some preaching issues as well, particularly as it relates to the use of the biblical languages in preaching. It was a reprint of a short article that I originally wrote for one of our Seminary publications (Paraklesis, summer 2009 (you can download that issue from the link given) ) on the Sharper Iron blog. It generated some lengthy and spirited discussion. You may find it of interest if you hadn’t seen it before. (Some comments, esp. early on, may not be as useful as some of the later discussion, which I joined as of comment #34. As is typical of active blogs like Sharper Iron, there’s a wide diversity of opinion expressed—from some who thought my remarks to be “condesending [sic] drivel” to those with helpful interaction.)
Are there any churches in “danger” of being mal-formed by getting too much OT? I don’t know of any. Jesus and Paul thought the OT was good for preaching Christ (Luke 24, 2 Tim 3). Most pastors are preaching through the Gospels the same way they do the OT: away from the light of the crucified lord of glory. Long stretches of OT may try a pastor’s ability stop using the unbelieving/Jewish hermeneutic, but only a failure to cover the full gambit of God’s Word will deform a church.
That’s my point. If someone decides to preach “straight through” from Genesis to Revelation, and does so without showing how it connects to the NT, assuming that it would take quite a few years to do the OT alone, that would mean that for quite a few years that church would not be getting “the full gambit of God’s Word.” That’s why I’m arguing for a balanced approach in lieu of that.
Though I doubt someone can get “too much OT,” what I’m concerned about is an unbalanced diet. I do know of churches who have subsisted on an almost exclusively OT diet for far too many years and which may well be “mal-formed” as a result.
Dr. Decker,
I found your post very thought-provoking, especially as I contemplate my own sermon schedule. Here are a couple related questions – reply at your leisure:
1. Other than your comments on Romans and 1 John, are there any genres you’d intentionally avoid with younger Christians/in a church plant? I.e., Apocalyptic? Parables? Ecclesiastes? 1 Kings?
2. Would you comment on speed going through books? Assuming that 10 years in Romans is too long, how long might you take going through Romans with younger Christians? 16 weeks? How about Luke? How do you gauge these sorts of decisions?
3. Any thoughts on Sunday AM and PM services? Would you do the same book morning and night or different? NT in AM, OT in PM?
4. How much do you take your predecessor’s schedule into consideration? The guy who preceeded me preached nearly exclusively topical sermons for 6 years. The congregation didn’t know what expositional preaching was. I know what I did, but I’m curious what you would have done. Very short expositional series?
In case you’re curious where I’ve been, my sermon schedule for the last 4+ years is found under the “sermons” tab here: http://www.trinitybaptistmuncie.org
Thank you always for your ministry.
Tim Raymond
1. There are not genres that I avoid preaching to younger Christians. What I advise is that younger preachers may not be ready to handle some of them when they are still mastering the art of preaching. It takes a few years, and even then you’ll (hopefully!) continue to improve. But in time, a good preacher should be able to expound just about any sort of passage for younger believers. A church plant might be a tad different, assuming that most of the congregation are new Christians (as opposed to “transplants”). In that scenario you’d want to spend a lot of time on the basics of the gospel and the Bible’s storyline. It’s not likely an appropriate choice to plunge into Eccl. or Rev. the first year. But that’s not an absolute. (Remember my link to the church plant series on Leviticus?!)
2. The pace at which you can preach will vary a lot. A book like Romans needs time. If you attempted anything less than a year you’d only be doing highlights. That might be useful in a few limited contexts, but I suspect it’s better done in more detail. Narrative is a different situation. There you must take large chunks—sometimes several chapters at a crack to avoid the moralistic approach. If you’re serious about dealing with the theological message and intention of the text in its context, you can’t do one (or a few) verses. There aren’t any rules for these things. You have to decide what you’re trying to accomplish, for whom, and if those goals are ones which respect the text (something some preacher’s goals seem, IMHO, to ignore altogether!).
3. There are a lot of variables on this one depending on the church. In the sort of churches you (Tim) and I are familiar with, the 2 services on Sun. + midweek service is pretty traditional. I think it’s culturally useful here and I’m not very excited about some of the more contemporary approaches that basically have one service a week with a small group format elsewhere (I’ll not expound my reasoning there!). But given the traditional format, I’d try to mix it up so the AM crowd (usually larger and more diverse) gets a healthy diet. In the dozen years I pastored, I ran 3 separate series, and always made sure at least one was OT. I’ve since seen it done effectively with AM/PM being related parts of a single series, though the format may differ a bit (e.g., the PM being more detailed or specialized, or expanding something from AM, etc.). That might be useful. It would also economize on prep time since you’d be working in related material. But even then I think I’d probably mix it up over time.
4. Predecessor’s schedule? A lot of variables there. My predecessor (in the one church where I spent most of my pastoral ministry) was so incompetent that anything I did looked good! (I’m only being slightly sarcastic! He lasted less than 2 years.) I pretty much ignored what he had done (other than trying to repair the mess in quite a few areas). But if I followed a more capable pastor, then I probably would think carefully about what he had covered. You were wise to transition into more substantive exposition gradually (assuming that’s what you did!).
Dr. Decker,
I am about to embark on preaching John’s Gospel and am intrigued by your comments here. I understand the need to teach narrative in larger chunks, but am also aware of the great depth in this book. My plan is to teach each “scene” in its entirity as a narrative and then step back and do, where appropriate, “behind the scene” sermons where I can take more time over certain details and themes that have appeared within the scene. So some scenes can stand alone whereas others (e.g. John 1:1-18) may have multiple follow up sermons.
Does that sound like the sort of balanced approach you advocate? What pitfalls should I watch for with this approach?
Anthony
John isn’t entirely narrative in the strictest sense of that word. It contains several sections that should probably be handled more like the epistles, including the prologue (1:1–18) and the Upper Room Discourse (13-17). As a result, you can have some variety within your exposition. Your ideas sound workable, esp. if the two sections I noted are where your “behind the scenes” sermons come in.
When I last preached through John I had been at the church about a year and was preparing to lead them from KJV to a newer translation (NIV was my choice then—this was 25 years ago). Along with a number of other things that I did over 2 years was to preach John in sections. After some prep work and doing Scripture reading through John (before preaching John, and while I was still preaching from KJV), I did several series in John, for one of which I used NIV from the pulpit for the first time (I don’t remember now if that was the Upper Room Discourse, or the Book of Signs?). Eventually I moved to NIV entirely, but the transition I was working toward lent itself to doing the book in several chunks.
Thank you, Dr Decker. Most helpful.
Dr. Decker,
Would I be more cynical if I were to say “praying more” would be an improvement from many sermons I’ve heard? It seems that aspect, as well as respecting the text, seems to be lacking.
I’m going through my thoughts on small groups. I’d be interested to hear your view on the matter.
Blessings,
Ty
I agree with Ty (BTW-How’s life, Ty?) – I’d love to hear you extrapolate on your reasons for prefering a Sunday PM service to small groups.
Tim,
I’m doing well. I’m in a transition period right now as I’m looking towards a lead pastoral role. I miss being able to wrestle with the text and preach often. Life with two young boys is awesome! They’re growing fast. How’s Tim?
Ty